Do 'Em Right
by H. P. Lovecats
Summary: One-shot. Alphys and Mettaton part ways in the Genocide route.


"Th-that... That should do it."

"That it should."

"M-Mettaton, are you..." Alphys took a deep breath in through her nose. Her eyes squeezed shut tight. The sweat on her scales turned into steam. Eyes open again. They locked onto Mettaton's... eye. He tilted his head, lifted his one brow. He wasn't smirking. She noted that, and bit her lip.

"... _Yeeees?_ "

She let go of the cannon at the end of his arm. "A-are..." She winced, lips curling over her teeth. "A-are you ready to... to..."

"I'm ready for anything." There came the smirk.

It only helped her a little. "Good," she said. "Good. Uhh." She turned to face the lab door, biting her lower lip and nodding. "Th-then... Then I'll start to... start to show everyone out. I-if... I'll still be watching." She sniffed. "You-you know that... r-right? I'll - I'll call you if... if you go off-camera..."

Mettaton lifted a finger with a flourish. "No need for that, Alphys."

She nodded. "Um. Yeah, I guess calling you while we're both... doing stuff... could be dangerous." A strained smile. She was flushed under her scales. "Like, really dangerous."

"Oh - all I was saying is that I wouldn't dream of keeping a _second_ of the action off-camera." He chuckled, but his heart wasn't in it. His smile bespoke courage but not a _lick_ of happiness. "That'd be doing you and the good residents of Hotland no favors whatsoever. I hope you've got a screen big enough for you _and_ all of your evacuees to watch my showdown with our little public menace in real time."

"Heh heh..." Alphys's eyes were downcast. "Yeah... I'll - "

She didn't have a big screen. She had her phone. Their "little public menace" had killed Undyne. She didn't plan on watching. She couldn't finish that sentence.

She took a deep breath.

"...Mettaton... Uhh. Sp-speaking of which... I..."

"You...?"

"I-I know we kind of... Well, we drifted apart a little. After... after I finished your body. Fffuh - finished it... u-up until this new mode, I mean."

Mettaton was her greatest creation and she didn't even really create him. Mettaton himself thought so, too. For her, that was the hardest part. For him... it kept it out of his mind.

"We _did?_ " Mettaton's voice had jumped up an octave.

And Alphys's brow knit high above her eyes. "Didn't we?" Then she scoffed. "B-bu-but that's not the point. I mean... not _now_..." She _squeezed_ her hands together in front of her. "I - wh-what I wanted to say, is..."

Dead-on eye contact again.

It caused her to sweat.

And again, steam steadily started to come in slow, creeping, curling transparent coils off her scales.

Mettaton didn't say anything, holding his pose. Legs staggered and straight, arms down at his sides and head up, wings open at an obtuse angle. Everything long, and _proud_ , and _gorgeous_.

And she lowered her stance. _Shrinking._ She breathed in. She breathed out. She glanced from side to side.

"...I-I'm really glad... you came back." There was sweat in her eyes, except that it was certainly not sweat. "I'm... I'm glad that I got to see, ss - some... _someone_ again, before... before something could... happen." She swallowed. "Th-that I got to work on this-this great form for you; I-I've always wanted to try building an evil-fighting robot - j-just like in the cartoons!" Her voice cracked - she shook a last bit of hysteria out with a long squeaky-toy "haaaa...!" and Mettaton's lip twisted.

He huffed the most _poised and artful_ of huffs out through his teeth and opened his mouth to say something, and she lifted both hands. He straightened up his back.

"B-but okay! The... the point is..."

She breathed in again. She breathed out again.

Damn, the air was _hot_...

She spoke slow. Shaky but consistent. Her eyes were on Mettaton's eye again. "It... it means a lot to me, Mettaton. Not only... did we get to spend some time together again, like... as _friends_ , but... that we could be _heroes_."

 _Wait._

There was a sound and light like a star flash in Mettaton's head.

"J-just for one day..."

The sound filtered out into surface music.

Mettaton was instantaneously supercharged.

His smile turned toothy. Intense. He "ha"-ed. "We _will_ be, Alphys."

And she was looking back down. Her shoulders were shaking.

Mettaton raised his brow. His grin slackened on one side. "...It's truly _something_. Isn't it?"

"It's..." She gulped, releasing it into a voiced sigh. She shook her head. "I don't..." Another quick glance back to the lab door, and back to him. She sized him up. Cannon. Wings. Menacing, upswept hair. Just the way she wanted it. Just like the cartoons.

She flipped her phone open. The human was walking on a red stone bridge over magma. Her heart _thump-thumped._ She made a shaky "aaah" noise, bit her claws till she could feel pressure from both jaws meeting in the middle...

"Th-they're coming, Mettaton - I-I..."

"Ha ha, I get it." And the joy sapped right back out of his smile. Nothing but purpose-driven determination. He tried to wink. He still... only had one eye. "It's up to us to save the show."

She tried to smile back. It was wide, thin, and wildly twitchy. Her pupils were contracted. Her eyelids, too, were twitchy. "Y-y... Yeah... Um." Gulp. She paused for a beat. "Uhh."

On the outside of her head, her skin prickled and tingled. Inside of it was a white, empty space in which her train of thought free-fell from one rail.

And hit another one with a clang.

 _Her biggest project to successfully_ not _hurt people._

She turned her claw in a circle in the air. "T-turn around...?"

He did. She flipped his switch. Bright light. She kept her eyes shut tight.

When she opened them, Mettaton had folded down. He snapped his fingers, saluted with a couple flicks of the wrist.

 _She was actually saying this._ And she was actually really, really meaning it.

"Mettaton..." She laughed very, very thinly. "...Knock 'em _dead_ out there, all right? For me. For, uh - U-U... _Undyne_ , f-for... _everyone_."

" _Ohhhh_ , you don't need to tell me twice, hun." He was trying to wink again. He couldn't, for double the original reason. She bit her cheek and looked off into a corner. _Really._ "I'll _give_ the villain their karmic retribution. You do your job and I'll do mine. All right?"

"I-I will..." She smiled hard. Her face burned. "I will."

He laughed. Robotic and rising. And his wheel started to spin. He mimed blowing her a kiss, made a "mwah" sound, and then...

He was right out of earshot.

She should have said more, but she didn't.

She stood there blinking.

The human was coming.

She turned to the lab door again, head turned over her shoulder, and then... straight.

No turning back.

 _Do your jobs._

 _Do them right._

* * *

 _Cross-posted to AO3.  
_


End file.
